Umbral Menace in the Multiverse

A/N:

So here y'all are. I think this chapter is quite good. in fact, it's my favorite so far. Seriously think I popped off here. So I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did. And if not, lemme know why by leaving a quick comment. I read all of those btw.

Enjoy the chapter!

=======================

RWQ leisurely followed the source of the scream. Indistinctly sounding like both a man and a woman, it didn't seem like they were doing too hot. Thinking this, RWQ devised a plan to make them become his friend.

Step 1. Discern the source of the trouble.

Step 2. Fix the problem.

Step 3. Accept payment in the form of friendship.

In his mind, the plan was totally infallible, foolproof even. The thought that said friend may just run away from him, helpful or not, didn't even cross his mind. Convinced that things would go right, he sped up his approach.

Floating into a clearing, RWQ looked around agitatedly, excited to make a new friend. What he saw however, was slightly off. Three small humanoids with pitch black skin wearing loincloths stood surrounding something at the base of a tree. More eye-catching however, was the large odd masks with furry trims covering their faces.

RWQ suppressed his presence and approached, intending to greet them. But when he stood over their shoulder, his eyes caught something he was not pleased to see.

A young human with black hair and androgynous features, making it difficult to discern gender. They seemed to be rather tall but at the same time frail, as evident by their long legs and moderately thin arms.

The reason RWQ was displeased however, was because the humans state seemed to be rather bad. Multiple bruises and cuts littered their body like a pattern, while an arrow poked out of their arm. Blood seemed to leak from everywhere, and it was glaringly obvious, even to RWQ, that this chaps life had expired.

"Oh..."

RWQ looked at the person, who he could just barely identify as a man, with sad eyes. It was the first time in Eons that he had seen any sort of harm or death, and it brought a truly bitter taste to his mouth. He wished he could've at least talked to him just once, but reminded of the permanence of death, he just stood there silently.

Mourning the loss of someone he never knew.

As he stared at the corpse in silence, he suddenly heard the voices of the small black humanoids. Looking over, he saw them chatting away, laughing, dancing, seemingly celebrating the loss of a life. And that made RWQ rather peeved.

Revealing his presence, he faced the humanoids with a tense expression, causing them to freeze up at the sight of him.

"Why? Why are are celebrating? Someone has died, but you're here laughing and dancing?"

RWQ admonished the group with a stern voice and posture. Seeing them shiver and slowly walk backwards, he thought his approach was working and pressed harder.

"At a time like this, your reaction is not only extremely disrespectful to this man, but to the people who care about him as well! Do you feel no shame?!"

His voice boomed, sending out a small shockwave of Umbra. The small people dropped their weapons and fell to the floor clutching their heads.

Wait, dropped their weapons? RWQ looked at the items that he somehow overlooked, and gasped in shock. A wooden club, a blunt dagger, and a crossbow. At the sight of these items, he remembered what they were for, and looked back at the fallen young man.

Cuts, bruises, and an arrow.

"Oh... I see..."

RWQ slowly turned back towards the small people who were still writhing on the floor.

"How could you? Doing something so cruel to another living person. And then celebrating on top of that..."

As he muttered to himself, RWQs menacing aura slowly grew, causing the somewhat conscious hilichurls to back away lest they be devoured.

"They surely must have suffered, while you're here dancing. To so such a thing, you must be rather devoid of heart. And the fact that if I weren't here you would have gotten away Scott free makes my blood boil."

The surroundings turned completely dark, while RWQs eyes glowed bright white.

"I can't in good conscience let you go without some sort of retribution. People as reprehensible as you need something dire to change your ways. However, I'm not so bloodthirsty that I'd take your lives, so how about this."

He lifted a black goopy limb towards them. "In exchange for that young man's life, I'll be taking some of your limbs. No one else will die here today."

The hilichurls, as if understanding his intent, temporarily forgot about the Umbra invading their minds, and attempted to run away. But if only it were that easy.

RWQ looked at them run for a second before heartlessly muttering.

"Unscrew."

In an instant, the hilichurls fell to the ground, skidding a couple of feet, before attempting to stand up. However they quickly realized something was wrong.

One hilichurl pushed himself up with both arms, but couldn't feel anything below their thighs. Looking back they saw their legs lying on the ground motionless.

The second hilichurl also pushed himself up, but could only do so with one arm. Patting the place where his other arm just was, they only felt a stump. The same went for one of his legs.

The third hilichurl couldn't push himself up at all. With only stubs where both arms were, the only thing they could do was flail both of their legs around.

And as the shock slowly faded, all three hilichurls began screaming violently, flailing what limbs they had left.

Even though there was no blood, even where the limbs separated, they were still thrashing about. It's as if they merely detached from the body, not even leaving a trace that they were ever there.

So while RWQ, in his misguided kindness, made the process painless, the brain is still rather unhappy with the loss of of its limbs, causing severe phantom pain.

Unaware of what they were going through, RWQ simply chalked it up to over reaction, and turned away.

"I hope you learned your lesson and do better in the future."

As the darkness receded back into him, he walked towards the man's body, picked it up, and hauled it elsewhere, leaving the hilichurls to suffer.

RWQ didn't feel too bad for it since he thought they'd live, but unfortunately for them, the Umbra had already corrupted their minds. By the time 5 minutes passed, they were twitching and foaming at the mouth, dead.

===========================

Laying the androgynous man on the grass, he thought about what to do with him. Originally, RWQ thought he would just give him a proper burial, but quickly realized he didn't know how to do that.

Then, while he was walking he had an idea.

"Should I try my hand at revival?"

Some may think RWQ was crazy for thinking this, but he had his reasons for such an absurd idea. Bad ones, but still reasons.

"If I revive him, won't he be thankful to me? He might even ask to be my friend!"

At this thought, RWQ had no more reason to delay, entirely unbothered about the moral and magical concerns of reviving someone from the dead.

Stripping off his clothes, he thought about how odd they were. Compared to the average person in mondstadt who wore trousers, plain shirts, and leather vests, he wore jeans with a jacket and undershirt that had splash art on it.

Not thinking further about it, he finished stripping him and moved his Umbra. Leaking out the mysterious dark energy, it filled the cuts in his skin. Mending together the slash and stab wounds, he looked at the bruises and clicked his toung.

"Tch, seems like there's not much I can do there. I guess it'll heal quickly if he comes back."

Upset with himself for not being able to do anything else on the surface, he ventured deeper, leaking Umbra into his mouth and moving it around like a surgical tool. Thanks to the disgusting amount of practice he had before coming here, he was as accurate as a machine, while being as delicate as a human.

Binding together the fragmented bones, and stitching internal wounds, he finally moved towards the brain.

"Ough..."

And grimaced.

It seems like the one with the club got the last hit in, as the man's brain had a large impact on its side. Like a bar of soap dropped on the shower floor.

"Oh no..."

Thanks to that, RWQ seemed to have run into a wall. So as accurate as he is with Umbra, fixing this person's brain didn't seem possible for him, as he wasn't a neuroscientist. He didn't even know the temporal part of the Temporal Lobe.

No matter how experienced you are, recreating a part of a person's brain without computer help is impossible.

Even if he molded it back into it's old shape, the internals must be so damaged that it wouldn't even work.

Retracting from his body, RWQ sighed. He couldn't bring him back. At least, not with Umbra. As he looked over his patched body that was basically healed aside from some bruises, he had a funny thought.

"If only I could just give him a new brain or something."

However RWQ found that thought ridiculous. He couldn't just go and take someone else's brain, otherwise he'd be no different from those small people from earlier.

"Haha, would it even be the same person?"

As he laughed at the foolish thought, he played with Umbra, molding the cloudy substance into different shapes to distract himself from the disappointment.

And then he stopped.

Before slowly molding the Umbra into a different shape.

The shape of a brain.

"..."

Right, Umbra was the ability to bind and separate.

If he bound something else to the body, and allowed it to pilot the corpse through Umbra.

The androgynous man's old consciousness may be lost, but someone else could take control.

Deeming the recovery of his soul impossible, RWQ decided to experiment.

"But even then, the question still stands. Who could possibly be experienced enough with Umbra to control it?"

Umbra was an outerversal energy. To be able to even use it, they had to be able to bathe in it without immediately have their soul shredded, someone like himself-

"Oh."

RWQ looked at the body of the person lying on the floor. Black hair and delicate features, undeniably human.

He then recalled the view of himself he saw in the pond. Striking fear into living beings hearts, even causing someone to faint upon seeing him. A terrifying mass of unknowable energy.

It seems it was already decided.

"Well then... I hope you don't mind.

If he wants to make friends, he had to take his body.

.....

....

...

..

.

A tall, lanky, dark skinned man sat up from the floor, their lengthy black hair falling in front of their face as they did. Their pitch black eyes blinked slowly as they vision adjusted to seeing again.

He attempted to speak, but failed due to being unfamiliar with the mechanism. Suddenly they began to feel odd, losing the feeling in their body. Remembering that humans needed oxygen to live, they quickly expanded his lungs to take a breath.

"Whoo, crisis averted- Whoa, I spoke!"

Astonished by the feeling in their throat when they spoke, RWQ practiced speaking.

"Aa, ii, uu, ee, oo. Wow! That feels weird!"

Giddy at the feeling, RWQ willed his body to move. Shooting up to his feet. He jumped around, feeling every sensation with his new body. Flexing his fingers

"Man, thankfully the new car came with an instruction manual. Otherwise I'd be clueless, haha."

Indeed, when he merged with the previous owners body, he gained access to all of the memories. They seemed to have been affected very little, if at all.

And thanks to that, he knew that this body was actually a reincarnator.

He died in an car accident that HE caused, before coming across a silly goddess who he tricked into granting him wishes. Thanks to that, he was reincarnated into another world full of hopes and desire to take advantage of people.

"He then got attacked in his sleep by hilichurls before getting chased and killed. Heh, poor guy."

RWQ, now in Brayden's body, recalled his story and chuckled. He lived a life full of manipulation and cruelty. What he got was what he deserved.

"Karma, as he would call it. I'm not a big fan of how he went out, but if I knew all that before coming to him, I wouldn't have come at all."

Observing his body again, he hummed, deep in thought. Dark skin, slightly longer hair, did he get taller too? He looked like a completely different person from Brayden. It would be easy to assume that this was all just the influence of Umbra, but it simply doesn't make sense.

Shaking his head, RWQ looked back in the direction of the town of mondstadt, and began walking in it's direction. As he went, he thought about what he knew about this world. Or rather, what Brayden knew.

Apparently this was the world of a game called Genshin Impact. Brayden asked to be reincarnated here with very evil powers for very evil reasons. But for some reason, he couldn't remember much more than that.

"Huh? Did his memories get botched after all? That's not right, I remember everything that led up to reincarnation. But for some reason, anything related to this world is blurry."

RWQ grabbed his head, eyes clenched in confusion.

"Agh, whatever. If something doesn't want me to know, then what do I care. It's not like I'm gonna use it to my advantage like Brayden was. I'm here to make friends godangit!"

Ignoring the implications of being in a game world, RWQ thought about his next actions. The number one priority was still making friends, and having this body would make it much easier. But as he thought about the ways he could do so, he realized that he still doesn't quite have an identity!

For example, what if someone he's talking to asks for his name? He couldn't just say 'RWQ and a longer string of letters', they'd think he's weird! Would they still want to be friends then??

So the first order of business was a new name. Of course, he still valued his old name. After all, it was one of the only things he remembered post-Umbra. But if he wants to shed that terrible past, he would need a new one.

So he got to thinking.

"Hmmm...

Hmmmmmmm...

Hmmmmm??

Hm!!

Hm.

I've got no idea."

RWQ had no idea what could be a good name. His naming sense may as well not exist, because why would it?

"Gurgghh..."

His head nearly overheated from thinking to hard, so he had to briefly stop. During that break, he thought about what he was doing wrong, and started trying from a different angle.

"Instead of making something from scratch, how about I just base it from my old name?"

Thinking it was worth a try, he decided to take the first three letters, RWQ, and sounded it out.

"RWQ. Rewq? Nah. Roke? Ew. Hmm."

RWQ scratched his chin and thought deeply.

"Ah, how about Rook?"

Rook seemed good, and it sounded like an actual name too! However, according to Braydens memories, it was more fitted to be a last name. So if he wanted that one, he would have to make another to avoid weird looks, which would take a while.

So it was back to the drawing board.

"Damnit Brayden, even in memory you're a pest...! Rook was good too..."

He continued to think, straining his brain to the point of combustion multiple times. Refusing to use Braydens name, but unable to use Rook, he thought long and hard. Untill finally, he had an epiphany.

"Wait! If I'm in Brayden's body, and I want the name Rook, why don't I just combine the two?"

Impressed with his own reasoning that took hours to come up with, RWQ thought about the different combinations of the two names. And before long, he settled on one he quite liked.

The B from Brayden, and the rook from RWQ.

"It's decided."

He stood up from his 'The Thinker' like pose and raised both of his fists.

"My name is Brook!"

This would create a menace the likes of which this world will never see again.

Teyvat, meet Brook.

========================